Carbon stocks and stability are diminished by short-interval wildfires in fire-tolerant eucalypt forests

Abstract

Forests play a key role in mitigating global climate change through carbon storage and sequestration. Wildfire affects forest carbon through combustion and by influencing forest mortality and regrowth, which are also influenced by a forest's growth environment. Wildfires are becoming more severe and frequent in many temperate regions but the impacts of such changes–in association with projected warmer, drier climates–on forest carbon stocks, remains under-quantified in many temperate biomes. We compare the impacts of a single high-severity wildfire and two high-severity wildfires within a short interval (six years) on carbon stocks 2–3 years after the last wildfire in multiple carbon pools o..